UK-based Guardian 'documentary' on Dearborn advocates political Islam

The UK-based Guardian publication offers a video that while posing as a documentary, reveals the commonality of leftists and Muslim activists. Commissioned by the Guardian, notable filmmakers Katharine Round and Ben Steele present in just sixteen minutes a itself to be propaganda for the view that non-Muslims are especially prejudiced in their attitudes toward and treatment of Muslims. In the testimony provided by several Muslim women who live in and around Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit, what is also revealed is their similarity to the claims of leftists and other peddlers of grievance. As for calling it a documentary, the video shares much more with the work of self-admitted “entertainer” Michael Moore, the famous Michigan native who filmed “Roger & Me.”

One of the first things the viewer learns is that Dearborn is home to the largest mosque in North America. Henry Ford is often credited with bringing some of the first Muslims to Michigan, having invited Yemenis to work in his nascent automobile factory. Besides Muslims from places like Iraq and Lebanon, there are many communities living in the Detroit area who have fled Islam. Recent immigrants from Iraq and Syria have included victims of the Islamic State, which has conducted a scorched earth campaign in those countries, where Christians have been murdered and dispossessed because they would not abandon their faith. There are also many descendents of those who fled persecution under the Muslim government of the Ottoman Empire, which exterminated 1 million Christians during the first years of the 20th century. None of this backstory was presented in the Guardian video, even though it mentions that Dearborn has one of the largest and oldest “Arab-American” communities in the country.

In the beginning of the video, we meet Sarah. Describing herself as Muslim of Lebanese ancestry born in the United States, she presents as a confident, attractive, and eloquent apologist for the idea that Islam is as American as apple pie. A recent graduate of law school, Sarah and her friends on camera wear hijab. Early on in the video, we hear a young woman identified as “Batoul” complain that a greeter at a Charlotte Russe store had apparently ignored her. Sarah listens attentively and then tells Batoul “You just have to brush it off and ignore them. This is as much our country as it is theirs. And we’re just as American...So what’s the point of getting mad? They want us to get mad, right?”

Victimhood

We then hear Sarah say, “For some reasons Muslims have been diminished in the eyes of Americans now, even though we ourselves are American. But we’ve been made to feel very un-American. And so, even though other countries are being oppressed physically, in this country, I feel our minds are almost being oppressed, because we can't be ourselves, in a way.” In this, Sarah appears to share much in common with transgender activists and Antifa leftists who want society to accept them, but only on terms that they themselves define.

The documentary shifts to another sign of the equation in the Detroit area. Christian talk-radio host Bob Dutko is shown on air speaking about Muhammed, the founder of Islam who, he says, had more in common with the Islamic State (ISIS) than with any peaceful Muslims today. Dutko is seen telling his listeners, “Folks, stop and think about that a moment.”

The Americans who portray other points of view appeared to have been selected because they are not as well-educated or of the same income as the Muslim advocates. One is Rob, a middle-aged white man who is identified as unemployed. He is shown hauling a trailer bearing a float he made himself that is festooned with American flags and signs proclaiming “Safeguard our borders.” Over this is TRUMP in giant letters. He pulls his “Trump unity bridge” through Dearborn in an effort to unite the city, calling out to pedestrians “Let’s make America great again.”

Rob drives through Detroit, revealing the economic devastation of the last thirty years. Whereas Detroit once had the largest automotive plant in the world, Rob notes that the Detroit area has recently had 10 million mortgage foreclosures. He said that people have been afraid to talk about “economic recession, depression, just like radical Islamic terrorism.”

Next up is Nick. Nick is shown bowling, as were Sarah and Batoul, but is obviously not as well-heeled. He worries about the demographic decline in the US and its effect on a “disappearing” culture. He is shown playing a shooter video game, and then is revealed as a member of the Michigan Militia -- a group of firearms enthusiasts who prefer to call themselves patriots. Nick asks “Who knows what's going on in those mosques?” Nick says. “They've got sleeper cells around just waiting to strike.” Nick and Lee, another Dearborn resident who appeared in the video, are then seen on military maneuvers.

But Nick and Lee are not the only gun enthusiasts in the video. Hijab-wearing Suehaila Amen, and her husband, Bilal, are seen on a gun range. Explaining why she is shooting a pistol at the range, Suehaila says that they need protection from Americans. “With all the Islamophobia and the anti-Muslim rhetoric, this has been the first time in my life, even though I travel all around the world, that I've actually been worried about my safety when I walk out of the house.” Next is Lila, Suehaila's hijab-clad mother, who says woefully, “Why do I have to look over my shoulder all the time? Why has it come to that?”

Muslim advocates not identified

A Google search reveals that Suehaila Amen is a Muslim advocate who received favors from the Obama administration. Her LinkedIn profile shows that she recently worked for the University of Michigan-Dearborn (misidentified in the video as Dearborn University) but now works as Director of Outreach & Educational Programs at HYPE Recreation center, which was formed in 2001 by Ali Sayed. She has also worked as a Training Coordinator for Walmart, facilitating Cultural Sensitivity & Diversity Training. She writes of herself: "Establishing, maintaining & continuing to enhance working relationships with key government agencies & community leaders over the last decade, my devotion to serving the community is unrelenting. I have traveled on numerous Public Diplomacy trips for the Department of State and Department of Homeland Security on Counter-terrorism & Combating Violent Extremism projects & consult with key federal agencies on various issues pertaining to the Arab and Muslim American community."

She also notes that she works with Muslim and non-Muslim organizations locally and nationally to produce workshops and fora on media relations, teaching Islam, and political action. "A true community leader, I recognize challenges & know how to overcome obstacles. My experiences over the last 20+ years has allowed me to work in establishing & participating in a number of programs enabling community members to foster learning, social justice, civic responsibility & community empowerment. In the winter of 2011, my family was featured in the groundbreaking TLC Reality series, “All-American Muslim.” I also own my own consulting, event planning & public relations company." None of the preceding information was provided in the Guardian's video.

No context

The video fails miserably in providing context. The Center for Immigration Studies, for example, reported in 2015 that the nations that have begun sending more people to the United States are from the Middle East. The following countries have the largest percentage increases in immigrants being sent to America:

This means that the number of Muslims accelerated enormously during the Obama administration, which allowed very few Christian refugees through the civil war that has beset Syria and engendered ISIS.

According to the Census Bureau's 2014 American Community Survey (ACS):

The immigrant (illegal and legal) population increased to record a record 42.4 million in 2014.

Immigrant population growth is accelerating.

Immigrants make up 13.3 percent of America’s population, the highest in 104 years.

The number of immigrants from Europe and Canada has declined.

Mexico had by far the largest immigrant population in the country, with 11.7 million legal and illegal Mexican immigrants living in the United States in 2014. However, their entry numbers have declined.

The largest percentage increases in immigrants came from Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Ethiopia.

Texas and California received the most immigrants in sheer numbers, while North Dakota and Wyoming got the most in terms of percentage changes.

Also absent from the video produced by Steele and Round are reasons non-Muslims in Michigan might have concerns over Muslim immigration. For example, the fanatically anti-American Dearborn imam Ahmad Musa Jibril gave sermons that radicalized at least one of the Muslim terrorists who went on a deadly rampage in July on London Bridge. There is also Khalil Abu-Rayyan, an ISIS enthusiast who was arrested in 2016 after planning to shoot up a church with a 6,000-member congregation. He said of the plans, “It is my dream,” he said, “to behead someone.”

They also ignored a 2012 incident in which Muslims pelted evangelical Christians with stones and bottles at a festival in Dearborn. When the Christians complained to police who were standing by, they were told to leave or go to jail. The local branch of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sought to silence Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center by demanding that local Republicans rescind an invitation to him to speak on radical Islam.

In June, a naturalized Canadian from Tunisia, Amor Fthoui, cried “Allahu akbar!” just before stabbing an airport police office in the neck in Flint, just 80 miles from Dearborn. The FBI has labeled that incident a terrorist attack.

Another part of the context that Round and Steele missed is the increased cost to taxpayers imposed by sharia law. Dearborn’s public schools knuckled under to CAIR several years ago, allowing Muslim students to come and go from class in order to pray and leave early on Fridays to attend mosque. Also missing from the video is that gay Muslims find it more difficult to be openly gay in Dearborn than in Lebanon.

Facts such as these do not square with the video Round and Steele made, nor with the rhetoric used by leftists and Muslim advocates such as Linda Sarsour, who organized the Women’s March on Washington over the same weekend President Trump was inaugurated, and who remains a shill for shariah and progressivism.

Advocating political Islam

Until media outlets such as the Guardian expand beyond their advocacy for progressive and Muslim views, they will miss the story about why Michiganders voted for Trump. By keeping their progressive blinders on, filmmakers Round and Steele will continue to be advocates rather than fair-minded observers of a reality unfolding before them. Facts are dismissed only by prejudice.

Bill Warner, who travels internationally to give lectures and updates on the inroads radical Islam is making in the West, responded to Spero News via email about the apparent alliance of the left with political Islam. Warner has long warned about how political institutions, and even Christian churches, are either ignorant of the threat political Islam poses or they are active by endorsing its entry into the West. The left seeks to destroy what remains of democratic governance in Western Europe, as does political Islam, and then move on to America, he says.

Warner wrote: "The red/green alliance is composed of two groups that want to create a new utopia. But first, the old corrupt culture must be destroyed. The Left sees themselves as the anvil and Islam sees themselves as the hammer. Both speak the language of victims and non-critical thought. It is all about feelings. The Left brought [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini to power in Iran. Five days later he killed the Leftist leaders. The women's groups are bankrupt. The video is about Muslims, not Islam. We need to talk about Koran and the Sunna of Mohammed and Sharia."

On Warner's website, PoliticalIslam.com, he provides insights into the goals of political Islam while drawing from his several books which offer facts, not only about the history of Islam, but also how the Koran spells out exactly how non-Muslims are to be treated under Islamic government. This and more is what leftist shills such as Round and Steele obviously dodge in what is obviously an effort to advance political Islam in the United States.